Viridescent
by Flipspring
Summary: Almost purrfect. Sadstuck. Nep/Kar


**Title**: Viridescent  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Almost purrfect. Nep/Kar  
><strong>Note<strong>: Since I've been putting so much time/energy into my humorstuck HP/HS crossover lately, I figured I should remind myself that my natural inclination is less lighthearted. So here's a little something. Inspired by Serenade from the more recent the HS album. So you know what's coming.  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Blood, Sad  
><strong>Pairings<strong>: Unrequited Nep/Kar  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Nepeta Leijon, Karkat Vantas

* * *

><p><em>These tears of mine, <em>_this shade I shed,_

_I cry green love, __the love you live,_

_Your voice is song, __your cry is death,_

_These tears are mine, __the hue I bled._

* * *

><p>Nepeta prides herself in three main things. She prides herself in her hunting prowess; there are few local beasts that do not fear the cutting death of her claws, and as she stalks them through the night, with the imminent flavor of blood tingling on the end of her tongue, with her eyes glowing softly in the faded light, with her soft footfalls brushing the ground in the most pristine silence, there is only one thought that can break her focus.<p>

She prides herself in her somewhat inept painting, or more specifically, her shipping wall, as juvenile and bizzare as it may sound; there is not a single quadrant combination left unpainted on the walls of her cave, and as she dips her brush to edit the validity, failure, or improbability of each ship, with her hand smoothly drawing out symbols with practiced ease, with pairings blossoming under her fingertips like new plants in the second spring, with slightly crooked lines forming as her artistic talent fails her, there is only one thought that can break her focus.

On nights like tonight, where the chill cuts almost painfully through her thick jacket and the wind makes the dark trees sound like a continuous, pounding waterfall, Pounce de Leon stays inside the cave, and Nepeta departs, not to hunt, but to trek to the nearest outcropping of jagged peaks. It's not such a far journey, only an hour or two to the north, and she makes it in good time, early enough to watch the purple moon rise into the sky.

She hums to herself as she settles down in a niche of a large boulder, sheltering herself slightly from the wind. The stars seem to drip upwards from the horizon, meeting at the top of the sky and spraying out into a great band of light.

But it's awfully cold, and she feels very much alone.

The trees below her rush and roar with the wind, and this is the only place where Nepeta can let those thoughts out into song - those thoughts that are the only ones capable of breaking her focus. She hugs her gloved hands to her belly, and draws her knees up to her chin, the cold air sucking out of her lungs in a way that wasn't strictly conductive to singing. But this was the only place she would give into her third pride, her most secret pride, and the one she knew was her worst of the three. Her voice didn't have much volume to it, nor variance; in fact, she usually used only about five notes, and sang them softly, under her breath, so that she could barely hear her own words, as the cold pressed in around her and she wished for another's warmth.

* * *

><p><em>These tears of mine, <em>_this shade I shed,_

_I cry green love, __the love you live,_

_Your voice is song, __your cry is death,_

_These tears are mine, __the hue I bled._

* * *

><p>She tried, desperately, valiantly, and ineffectually to keep her secret. She liked to lie to herself that no one knew, but the always-truthful voice that whispered to her in the eternal darkness of the Veil said otherwise. She would hide in a broom closet, in the darkness, and sing to herself her quiet regrets. Secrets like these were best kept in the darkness, where no one else could hear them. But all the time she'd spent around him... she had that regretful feeling he knew, and that painful feeling that he was ignoring her.<p>

She tried to keep her attitude towards him exactly the same as her attitude towards the rest, but there must have been something she'd slipped up on, because sometimes, she would look away from her computer screen, and see his face jerking his gaze away. Or maybe that was just her overactive imagination.

The array of colors in her paint set was made from the blood of culled wrigglers. She tried not to think about it as she used their blood, their crushed hopes, to paint hopes and speculations onto the walls of the lab. The deep red heart that meant most to her was left in i's place, not out of pattern from the rest, and no more overdecorated or under decorated compared to the rest of the small squares. But sometimes, she couldn't help herself, and she'd draw out a larger painting of the pair, hoping that no one would stumble across that particular wall, hoping at the same time that _he_ would see it, somehow, hoping at the same time that he would never really know her feelings, but that he'd discover them for himself.

For her, these painted lies and ephemeral song-whisperes are infinitely more beautiful than her reality. She feels it so deeply it's physically painful, but she could never sing them in front of him, could never paint them where he would definitely see, could never hunt him down with real hope in her heart. Nepeta looks down at her wriggler-bloody gloves and doesn't cry.

She rested her forehead against the heard she'd drawn on the wall, smudging it as her voice wavered quietly, where no one else could hear it.

* * *

><p><em>These tears of mine, <em>_this shade I shed,_

_I cry green love, __the love you live,_

_Your voice is song, __your cry is death,_

_These tears are mine, __the hue I bled._

* * *

><p>When she saw him and Terezi arguing with each other yelling and cackling and slapping each others hands, she didn't feel anything, really. Was there something wrong with her?<p>

She didn't think so.

But the only thing she could feel when she saw him grouchily shove away Terezi's cane like that, then turn and smile, just a little, from the corner of his mouth, the only thing she could feel for him was happy. She was happy that there was someone that could make him smile.

Sometimes, when she plays pretend with her teacups and saucers, turned them into _furocious dragons_ and _purredatory felines_ and _pawsitively terrifying creatures_, Nepeta would imagine, offhand, her focus broken by _that_ thought, what would happen if she could walk up to him and say, just say it out loud, sing it for him and paint it across her face, what would happen?

That truthful voice tells her what would happen, and she ignores it, but still, she doesn't walk up to him. It is better this way. Better to sneak glances at him from across the lab as he quarrels with Terezi and sighs at Gamzee and yells at everyone else. She tries her upmost to hold back the impulses she has to get closer to him, from risking that he find out for certain, and takes her paints and her voice elsewhere where she can express them to a nonexistent audience.

She's not sad, either. Equius thinks she's insane to harbor any positive feelings toward him, and she hopes that he doesn't really know the extent of her pity. But that truthful voice... But it's not pity, not really. It's something more vibrantly red and happy and alive. Anyway, she's not sad. Nepeta knows she's not sad because she always smiles, because she can _pounce_ more happily than anyone else, because she feels radiant joy whenever she sees any friend, because she is happy to just be here with everyone, as doomed as they all keep saying they are.

The words that inevitably leave her mouth, when she sings, though...

* * *

><p><em>These tears of mine, <em>_this shade I shed,_

_I cry green love, __the love you live,_

_Your voice is song, __your cry is death,_

_These tears are mine, __the hue I bled._

* * *

><p>It's been a terribly distressing day. (Does it count as a day if there's no sun to count by? Oh, it doesn't really matter. They were right. They were doomed.)<p>

Gamzee, how could he? What happened to him? What happened to the Gamzee who'd laugh and tumble with her when no one else was in the mood? What happened?

And Equius, he was so strong, how could he, how could, why, how, _why?_

She was so _furious_, though, when she saw Gamzee strangle Equius like that. Her MOIRAIL! Equius! Gamzee!

Not a single thought crossed her mind as she leaped from the ventilation duct, claws fully extended and tears leaking from her eyes.

Except...

_(Karkat!)_

No.

No thoughts.

But Gamzee, sweet Gamzee, silly Gamzee, he was crazed and he was strong and Nepeta's focus broke in her hunting from _that _thought as she stared into his reddened eyes and leering grin. Fangs shining, tongue hissing, eyes wide, pupils contracted, paint smeared, words frozen, frozen, frozen.

Nepeta felt the club collide so hard with her gut that she coughed up a small dribble of green from her lips. He dropped her to the floor, next to Equius' cooling body, and raised the club over his head, looming, a great black shadow with glowing red eyes. She almost winced just before it collided with her skull.

...

Nepeta lay on the icy floor, green leaking from her as she gazed blankly ahead. Some hair was sticking to the corner of her mouth, but she didn't move to brush it away. She forced her hand to move, dip her fingers into the green, and paint his face beside her, paint his face with blood, the way she'd done countless times before. Her throat was constricting but she couldn't swallow the blood away, her fingers were trembling but she couldn't make them stop, and each breath was ragged and excruciatingly painful.

She drew a heart in green between them, closed her eyes, and drew a final, strangled breath to whisper out in song.

As she smiled.

* * *

><p><em>These tears of mine, <em>_this shade I shed,_

_I cry green love, __the love you live,_

_Your voice is song, __your cry is death,_

_These tears are mine, __the hue I bled._


End file.
